Osprey Video Capture Cards Assist National University of Singapore
The ViewCast Osprey line of high-performance video capture cards is playing a starring role in educational Webcasting and distance learning programs at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The university is using the Osprey devices for NUScast, an award-winning program for streaming video of university lectures and other events over the NUS Web site. In addition, as a participant in the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) educational consortium, NUS is using the streaming technology in a joint distance learning program with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The Osprey devices are provided by ViewCast Corporation (OTCBB: VCST), a leading global provider of high-quality audio and video encoding communication products.
A recent winner of MIS Magazine's IT Excellence Award for Best Business Enabler, NUScast is an Internet TV channel that enables faculty and students to access a full range of on-demand and live Webcast lectures, seminars, and campus events such as commencement ceremonies. Students and faculty also can access news; educational and research network television channels such as BBC World, Channel News Asia, the Discovery Channel; and local television broadcasts. The Osprey Video capture cards convert live analog video signals into digital formats such as Windows Media, RealVideo, or Flash for viewing over the NUScast Web portal.
"The streaming technology has enhanced the overall quality of learning for our students. When they're in class, they can focus on the lecture itself rather than note-taking, and later they can view the Webcast of the lecture to capture anything they might have missed and revise their material prior to a discussion or tutorial session," said Mr. Soh Hock Heng, manager, NUS Center for Instructional Technology. "Also, when packaged with metadata such as IMS or SCORM, lectures can be saved as reusable learning objects, which allows us to build up a valuable knowledge base of course materials that can be accessed again and again."
